By Lou Modestino
The roar of the engines will once again fill the air at the Thompson International Speedway when the track opens for the first of two pre-season practice sessions on Saturday, March 30th. Each year, the first open practice session is very important to competitors and this year it will be of particular importance to the drivers of the former Thompson Modified division.
Nearly every TIS Modified team has moved to a new division at the track and each will be faced with challenges as they adapt to new cars and drivers in a completely different class of race cars. The Thompson Late Model class has become the division of choice for the majority of the TIS Modified Drivers.
The 2012 Thompson Modified champion, John-Lowinski-Loh, JR is just one of the drivers moving to the Late Models. He recently said that he was really looking forward to competing in a Late Model but he said that he and his team had their work cut out for them. He spoke of the fact that the cars are bigger and that there will be a need to adjust to a different suspension system, different tires and to learn to work with less visibility in the full-body style car. Lowinski-Loh, Jr said, “We will be racing with much more experienced guys but I think there will be close competition. I also think there will be a nice field of cars and that will make for really good racing. We are also looking forward to traveling to other tracks and getting valuable seat time. We are even thinking about going to Loudon,” he concluded. Lowinski-Loh, JR. had a very successful 2012 season. He scored eighteen top five finishes and visited victory lane a total of nine times.
Other former TIS drivers will face the same challenges. Chad LaBastie, Ryan Morgan and Glenn Boss will also compete in the Late Model division. It will be all new for LaBastie and Morgan. However, Boss may have a bit of an advantage since he competed in four regular season Late Model races last year and finished in the top five in each one.
Jason Sundeen, who finished second in the 2012 TIS points, will move to the Sunoco Modified division. Like Boss, Sundeen also tested the waters in another division. He competed in five Sunoco Modified events last year and posted two top ten finishes. Danny Gamache, JR will also step up and try his hand in an LKQ/Keystone Lite Modified. Gamache impressed a lot of people with his fourteen top five finishes and a win in his Thompson Modified.
Brian Tagg, a regular competitor in the TIS division since 2008, will concentrate on his education and career before climbing behind the wheel of a race car again in 2014. However, he will still be a familiar face at Thompson as he will work with his cousin Troy Tallman who was named Rookie of the Year in the LKQ/Keystone Lite Modified division.
A new season always presents new drivers, teams and challenges. For this reason, the open practice scheduled for Saturday, March 30th is a very important day for all racers. A second open practice day is slated for Saturday, April 8th. Both of these sessions will greatly help race teams as they prepare for the season-opening Icebreaker on the weekend of April 13 & 14 at Thompson.
The 39th Annual Town Fair Tire World of Wheels rolls into Boston from Friday, March 22 to Sunday, March 24. The show features America’s finest hot rods, customs, trucks and motorcycles “Tribute to the Batmobile” featuring three generations of the iconic Batmobile also Gene Winfield’s “Chop Shop” demonstrations presented by “Genuine Hot Rod Hardware” and World of Wheels OL SKOOL RODZ Display.
Entertainment stage features include; Ol Skool Rodz PINUP GIRL contest on Saturday 9 p.m., Davis Cleveland “Flynn Jones” of Disney’s “Shake It Up” on Saturday 1-4,6 and -8 p.m. Also Filthy Phil from “Sons of Anarchy” and WWE Superstar “Edge” on Sunday at 12 and 3 p.m.
Several classic car and hot rod clubs from all over the metro Boston area are expected to be in attendance including the Wheels of Time out of Brockton, MA Cruisers of Norfolk among several others. New England Dragway of Epping, NH and New Hampshire Motor Speedway are both expected to have a presence there giving fans opportunity to buy tickets to there major events this season.
Friday’s hours are 3-10 p.m., Saturday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. It’s held at the Seaport Trade Center (formerly Commonwealth Pier) and is accessible through the MBTA Silver Line T Station. Tickets are $18, children 6-12 $5. Discount tickets are available through townfairtire.com worth $2. Children are also admitted free on Friday accompanied by an adult.
Abington’s 15-year old Nick Lascola was hornored by the INEX Legends Cars as the Massachusetts State Champion as well as finishing in ninth place, overall, in the INEX National point standings. Lascoula finished first in Young Lions points and third overall at Seekonk Speedway’s Legend Car standings. For 2013 he expects to chase the track championship as well as making his debut in a Late Model Stockcar at some point during the racing season. Nick is also involved in a Massachusetts cancer campaign. His grandmother is a cancer survivor. He’s also working towards a $50,000 race sponsorship by Champion Spark Plugs and if he gets it he’ll donate $5,000 to the Cancer Society.
We made our third trip to the Pro9 Racing Museum in Pawtucket, RI over the weekend. We were surprised that the race car display area was expanded out in the back of the building. It increased that area by another third with some interesting vintage race cars.
Elsewhere owner/curator Ric Mariscal has been very busy since the last time we were there making improvements to the entire museum. The Rhode Island room is strictly for that state. At one time there were many oval race tracks in Rhody including one of the first in 1898 when Naragansett Park on the other said of Pawtucket conducted the first ever automobile race. Some 14 years ahead of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the center of the Rhode Island room was a barber chair a gift from long time racing buff Bruce Cohen. Bruce told Mariscal that many top race drivers partied at his residences over the years and even slept in the chair.
Some of the race cars on display included a Ralph Moody midget of the 40’s era, a Mini Modified driven by Dan Meservey along with two other that were driven by Bugs Stevens including the Old Blue #3 owned by the late Lenny Boehler. There are also racing uniforms from all racing eras as well as t-shirts and posters from tracks present and shuttered from all over New England. The first floor also housed Mariscal’s office and a gift shop.
On the way up stairs there was the New England Antique Hall of Fame wall with plaques for every member inducted into that body. At the top of the stairs there’s the Mike Stefanik room with many of that noted Modified drivers accomplishments. That’s also the Pro9 Museum Theatre.
When quizzed by me about a para-normal event that happened there, Ric revealed the following. “A few years ago I was watching a racing film with my pet cat. I felt a breeze in the room and my cat eye’s followed something going across the room and then darted out and hid in another part of the museum. I didn’t think much about it and went looking for my cat and found him under a table in one of the storerooms. I tried to get him out but the cat hissed at me. I left and went home to let the animal settle down. When I returned he was waiting for me when I unlocked the front door. He was much calmer then and then I took him home. I live about four blocks away.
Another night I was in the theatre and lost track of the time and my girlfriend called me on my cell phone. She said ‘it’s rather late so I’ll see you tomorrow.” As she was talking I happened to notice a racing crewman’s shirt on a hook hanging on a hook that was spinning around. It was one worn by the late John Koezella a prominent race car owner who always dubbed his car Woodchopper Special and driven by some of the top drivers in past eras. I told my girl friend that something weird was going on and hung up.
All that bothered me to the point that I ended up calling in the Rhode Island Para-Normal Group, that investigates such phenomena. They came in and set-up cameras and sound systems. The recordings had several inaudible sounds but something we could hear was —-ten. Late we figured it out that it must have been fifteen. That’s the number on the Woodchopper race cars. We think that John Koezella was trying to communicate with us,” said Mariscal.
There’s also a library on the second floor with all kinds of books, magazines and newspapers and other memorabilia. In other storage areas we saw other items that will be put out from time-to-time as Mariscal gets around to it.
Weather permitting the Capeway Rovers, on old Rt. 44, in Middleboro will go with the first motoX event of the season on Sunday at 9 a.m. At the same time the Holiday Inn in Taunton offers a model car exhibition. (end)